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Greetings Joe! Congratulations on your excellent new album, and thank you for this AMA. I'm a huge fan and restrained myself to these few questions:

1. It blows my mind to see how well you manage to write so many different albums successfully: many artists' material doesn't differ much with the years, but you seem to magnificently reinvent yourself and your music every two years or so. How do you keep finding new avenues to explore - and explore them so well?

2. With the years, your writing and playing styles have evolved much: you mentioned this when describing the reasons why Crushing Day didn't make it in your setlists these days. I was wondering if the opposite happened sometimes: did you ever write a song you weren't particularly fond of, but ended up loving it with the years?

3. Out of all your songs, Steve Vai's favorite is Cryin', according to a recent Q&A he did on Facebook. Which of Steve's songs is your favorite?

4. You recently mentioned that in your current approach to writing songs, you have a movie playing in your head. How does this approach differ when the theme to the song you're writing is imposed, such as your soundtrack to Nascar 06?

5. How would you say the arrival of Mike, Brian and Marco in the band influenced you in the studio? Or maybe even live?

6. My most memorable shows ever were part of one or the other G3 tours you have done. Are there any plans to bring a new G3 tour to us in the future? Oh, and by the way - Marty Friedman would be happy to be part of the tour, wink wink ;)

7. I have noticed that when playing shows in the last few years, you have been tuning your guitars in Eb. Is there a particular reason why you're keeping E for your studio recordings?

8. Metal always seemed rather present around you along the years, whether it's the bands you've played with or toured with, the guitarists you taught to, or even the album you produced. So I was wondering: how would you qualify your relationship with metal?

9. You honored Surfing With The Alien's 20th anniversary with some very special events. Would you like to do something similar for any other album eventually?

10. Some incredible songs of yours are rarely part of your setlists and considered "cursed" because there was always something unexpected happening when playing them. Can you share some stories about these?

Again, thank you very, very much! I'm looking forward to seeing you on tour again!

There is no reason that we have to gender every interaction we have with people. People read my gender all sorts of different ways, and it feels really uncomfortable to have people assume something about me that feels very intimate (also they are very often wrong).

I love how well you put this. As a non-native English speaker, it is still hard for me to use the right pronoun as it goes against what we've learned in school, but it's definitely worth the effort!

Thanks for the explanation and for your activism!

For the lazy: Freak Show Excess

Thank you for this AMA, Alex. I missed that Vai tour, but hopefully you'll team up again sometime soon!

Greetings Marty! I must admit I have mostly heard your music through Megadeth, but I recently heard Dragon's Kiss and it blew me away. Thanks for the great music! Now for questions:

1) It seems like many musicians (I also have Paul Gilbert in mind) are fascinated by the japanese culture. What would you say the western world misses the most, musically, that is present in japanese music?

2) Given your impressive musical portfolio, would you consider joining a tour such as the G3 someday?

Holy potatoes, I didn't expect you to answer all 10 of these! :D Color me overthrilled!! Well, I still have more if you're truly up to it :)

1. "Time" was definitely worth the wait: it's actually the first song I ever heard from you, on your Live In San Francisco DVD. On the opposite, any song took a particularly short time to write?

2. G3: so far, I have seen and loved Steve, John, Yngwie and Paul. You can't go wrong with any of them, but I've been a huge Paul fan since I discovered him on the G3 2007 tour. Say, your G4 Experience is a sharing experience; have you learned something from Paul during that time?

3. If would be a thrill to see you play The Extremist in its entirety on tour. My most memorable contact with this album was through your "Summer Song" video: any interesting experience to share about shooting this video (or any other, for that matter)?

4. I was indeed thinking about "The Forgotten" in my question #10 above. Then I have to ask you: is there a particular reason for which "Secret Prayer" is sooooo rarely played live? It is probably my favorite song of yours and even on the Internet, it is hard to find a video of it.

5. You recently reworked on all your songs for your Chrome Dome release. Do you feel one track or album benefited the most from it?

Thanks again!!! :D